


The Rise and Fall of Leopold Radcliffe

by agent85



Series: 52 Stories in 52 Weeks [43]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, The Framework, character cameos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-28 09:25:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10085630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent85/pseuds/agent85
Summary: He's never seen a woman like this in Radcliffe Square, caked in dirt and staring at him with a wildness in her eyes. He wonders if she's some kind of madwoman, if he should call for help. He's never felt the need for security here at the square."Fitz," she calls out, her voice hoarse, "they're trying to keep me from you. I need to get you out of here."He takes another step back and waves his tea and scone out defensively."Who are you?"





	

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday, Sarah!! I wanted to give this to you on your birthday at a time you were awake, but here we are. I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoy being in this fandom with you. <3
> 
> And welcome to week forty-eight of my [52 short stories in 52 weeks challenge](http://agent-85.tumblr.com/52)! This week's prompt: a story about a strange, small town. A lot of it is inspired by The Truman Show.

Every day, Fitz's driver drops him off at the entrance to Radcliffe Square precisely at 7:34 AM, which gives him enough time to buy a paper, grab a scone, and take in the lovely weather before going into work. Today, he steps out of the limo and takes a minute to breathe in the fresh air.

"Lovely day, isn't it?"

He doesn't have to turn to know that it's Victoria, but he turns and nods to her like the gentleman he was raised to be.

"Every day is lovely here," he agrees. 

Victoria is the type who likes to go into the office and get a head start, but Fitz prefers to take his time. After all, it's something of a relief to be here among people who know and respect him, unlike the throngs of people who yell his father's name behind barricades near the Stark Tower doors. Even Lincoln, who's reading a paper with Fitz's face on the front page, offers Fitz a warm smile and a handshake as he passes. Fitz has a chance to read the headline when Lincoln goes back to reading:

 

RADCLIFFE AND RADCLIFFE: THE FATHER-SON PARTNERSHIP THAT'S PUTTING WAR OUT OF BUSINESS

 

He tries to act normally when he goes to buy a copy of his own at the newsstand, though he can't help but look at his picture a few times more than necessary. It always takes his breath away when he sees his dad standing next to him, beaming with pride. 

"Is that it for you, Dr. Radcliffe?" asks Davis.

"Please," he says with a wave of his hand, "call me Fitz." He's about to put the money on the counter and walk away, but he pauses. "Actually, can I have a fashion mag? For my mum. She just can't get enough of 'em."

"Of course you can, Dr. Radcliffe."

Fitz sees the glint in Davis' eyes and laughs, wondering how long they'll have this little joke between them. He shakes his head as he pays, stuffing the magazine into the newspaper and under his arm before anyone can see it. He'll get his scone and tea, he'll play with the new toys his father brought back from his trip to Quinn Worldwide, and the magazine will go straight in his desk drawer until he's the last one left in the lab. He swallows as he gets in line at the corner café, feeling the magazine burn a hole into his suit coat even as he insists on waiting in line like everyone else. He'd be paranoid if he thought they could see it, so he focuses instead on the offerings available to him, agonizing over his selection even though he knows his usual will be waiting for him by the time he gets to the register. If he knew why he's doing this, why he keeps doing it even though he knows it's silly, he might not feel so ashamed. But he washes it down with tea and slips out the door, knowing that there are some mysteries of the universe that even he doesn't dare to unravel.

He likes to people watch during the walk from the café to Radcliffe Enterprises. Kids laugh as they ride their bikes, women gossip with armfuls of groceries, and the only sign that this is, in fact, the center of technological innovation is the skyscraper that looms above them. Fitz likes to look at that too, at the sunlight that gleams off the windows and the large sign bearing his name. He's so entranced that he doesn't notice that someone's coming towards him until he almost knocks them over.

"Sorry," he says out of instinct, stepping back. "Are you—"

He's never seen a woman like this in Radcliffe Square, caked in dirt and staring at him with a wildness in her eyes. He wonders if she's some kind of madwoman, if he should call for help. He's never felt the need for security here at the square.

"Fitz," she calls out, her voice hoarse, "they're trying to keep me from you. I need to get you out of here."

He takes another step back and waves his tea and scone out defensively.

"Who are you?"

It's strange, the way her face falls. It's like he just slapped her, and he's absolutely bewildered. Is he supposed to know her? Or is she one of those fans who are under some kind of delusion that they're best friends? Either way, he's so confused that he's absolutely shocked when two men come seemingly out of nowhere and take her by each arm, carting her off.

"It's not real!" Her mouth is pointed towards the heavens, but he knows the cry is meant for him. "None of this is real, Fitz! You're in the Framework!" 

A woman comes up and stands next to Fitz, and Fitz is fairly certain that she's asking if he's okay, but it's hard to hear her over the screaming.

"He kidnapped you, put you in here and sent an LMD back to the base so we wouldn't know! Daisy and I are trying to—"

But she's cut off when the men shove her into a car, slam the door shut, and drive off before Fitz has any idea what he should do about it. He just stands there, slackjawed, until the woman guarding him puts a hand on his shoulder.

"Homeless people, right?" The woman removes her hand when Fitz frowns at it. She's an employee of the company, too, though Fitz can't place her. "They're really cracking down."

Fitz isn't sure what to say, so he makes his excuses and heads into work, clutching at his newspaper. He goes past security, up to the 16th floor, and buries himself in work so he doesn't have to worry about it. He likes to think of the square as a little town of its own, but the reality is that it's just a small corner of a large metropolitan area. He shouldn't be so shaken if a stranger pops up every once in a while. Still, he can't help but wonder what an LMD or a framework is. She must be spouting nonsense, but there's something about it that wears on him.

It's still there in the back of his mind when he can finally open the secret drawer that even his father doesn't know about, put in the code to unlock the metal box, and retrieve the picture inside. This is his true passion project. His work of art has the eyes of one model, the hair of another, the nose of a third, and so on until it comes together to form a unique face that he's never seen before. Still, it doesn't seem quite right.

He flips through the ads to see if they have what he's missing, and it takes a few minutes before he realizes it's the eyes. He rips out a pair of eyes from the magazine and frowns as he decides if it fits, eventually deciding that it's better, but not perfect. Right now, this picture is the monster to his Frankenstein, but something tells him that it can turn into something more than that. So he cards his hands through his hair and tells himself that it's the best he can do for now.

After all, he can pick up a new magazine tomorrow.

* * *

Hunter is there when he gets home, and Fitz pretends to be appalled by the intrusion knowing that Hunter will blissfully ignore any real offense Fitz could have. His friend greets him by waving one of Fitz's craft beers in the air and taking a purposeful sip.

"My grandad was right, you know," Hunter says, "it's all about who you know, and your security staff seems to like how friendly I am."

Fitz manages to roll his eyes as he shucks off his coat, earning a chuckle for his efforts. He collapses on the couch and takes the beer that Hunter holds out for him.

"Technically," he says as he twists of the top, "this is trespassing and theft. I should have you arrested."

"Fitz," Hunter admonishes, "don't be daft. You know you don't want to deprive yourself of my company."

Fitz can only laugh in response, and it is nice to have him here, whether he drinks the best liquor or not. It's a great way to unwind at the end of the day, because Hunter is savvy enough to not ask for details that Fitz can't share. Fitz likes Hunter's stories, too, even if he doesn't really believe them. Usually, they're about some impossible adventure, but tonight it's about a girl that Hunter's been noticing around town, one he most certainly did not think of in that way, because he is a happily married man and she has a boyfriend. It's nice just to listen sometimes, to get swept up in the narrative.

"Hey," Hunter says after a small silence, "you don't have anyone coming to visit you, do you?" 

Fitz looks up at him, frowning. "My dad came back today, if that's what you mean."

"Never mind," says Hunter. He closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. "You know, it's getting late, and you know how the old lady is if I miss my curfew. So I'll get going, unless there's something else you wanted to talk about."

Fitz wonders if he should tell him about his own mystery girl, the one that's only in his head. Maybe Hunter would understand.

Hunter stands up and looks down at Fitz, tilting his head to the side. "You okay there, Fitz?" 

In the end, Fitz loses his courage. "Yeah," he says, "just been wondering if I should go away, give people a chance to miss me for once."

Hunter folds his arms and cocks his head. "Where to?"

"I don't know." This is another secret he can't bring himself to tell. He has a map of Scotland stashed away in his room, with a red circle around a place called Perthshire. "I just, I wonder if I need a change."

"If you say so," says Hunter, "but you're already one of the luckiest men in the world. And the most successful. Was it last year you were named the sexiest man of the universe, or something?"

Fitz feels his cheek flush, and he scratches at his beard. "And this year," he corrects.

"Ah, well excuse me," says Hunter, "but either way, it seems to me like you've got a pretty good life already."

Fitz can't think of a response, and it must be because Hunter is right. Fitz doesn't have time to really figure it out before Hunter smiles and shows himself out.

* * *

"You're sure you don't have anything new?"

Davis takes a second look at his magazines, and Fitz knows he's just doing it for show, but Fitz appreciates it anyway.

"Sorry, Dr. Radcliffe. A buddy of mine runs a stand a few blocks from here; I can ask her if she has anything different."

"Nah," he says, shaking his head, "don't want to put you through so much trouble. I'm sure my mum will understand."

"They say she's a very magnanimous lady," Davis agrees.

Fitz chooses not to respond and pays for his paper. It's just as sunny today, but something seems off about it, something his scone and tea can't fix. He writes it off as more silliness and continues along his routine, forcing himself to think of his projects in the lab rather than whatever weirdness is happening out here.

He's so wrapped up in his thoughts that he nearly screams when someone takes him by the elbow and all but pushes him against the wall. His tea sloshes everywhere and a hand covers his mouth. When the panic wears off, he's staring at a pair of brown eyes.

They're familiar, somehow. He looks into them and sees compassion wrapped in ferocity, and he's too entranced to be afraid. She looks back with the same intensity, then removes her hand from his mouth.

"Don't scream," she says, but the truth is that he's too stunned to whisper.

He knows that it's wrong, that he shouldn't let her take his hand and lead him out of the square, but he's powerless to stop her. When he finally gets a good look at her, he has to lean against a wall to stay upright.

"You're . . ." he starts.

But she nods, because she knows that he's asking if she's the woman from yesterday. She's clean now, but her clothes are too loose to be her own. She follows his eyes and shrugs.

"Turns out that Trip is a good friend in any reality," she says, "even if he thinks you're just some bum off the street. He let me take a shower and gave me a change of clothes, but I didn't ask whose they were."

"Who's . . ." He pinches the bridge of his nose and tries to focus. "Look," he says, "I'm always happy to meet my fans, but I've got to get to work, or my dad is going to—"

"He's not your dad."

Fitz stops, cocking his head at her.

"Of course he's my—"

She rolls her eyes at him, like he's being willfully obtuse. "Why do they call you Fitz, then?"

 

 

He squints at her for a minute, completely at sea. "What?"

"If your name is Leopold Radcliffe," she says, "then why do they call you Fitz?"

He opens his mouth to tell her the story when he finds that no words come out of it. He closes his mouth, opens it, then closes it again, but in the end he can do nothing but look at the woman and frown. "It's just . . . what they call me."

Her smile is small, but it brims with victory.

"What if," she says, "your actual name is Leopold _Fitz_. What if Radcliffe is just an opportunist you met in a Romanian club a year ago. What if Agnes is—"

He puts out a hand to stop her. "Don't. Don't say anything about my mother."

He expects her to argue back but instead she seems to soften, watching him.

"You have a real mother who loves you," she says, "who made sacrifices to give you a better life. Agnes Kitsworth is a woman who didn't know you at all before you came here. Haven't you ever noticed that she's too young to be your mother?"

"Well," he defends, "she's not—technically, she's my . . ."

She folds her arms and watches him flounder, but her eyes have no spite in them. She's waiting for him to arrive at the right answer.

"She looks young for her age," he concludes. 

"Okay," she says, "then answer me this: where were you before all this?"

He blinks at her. "Before what?"

"This," she says, waving a hand in the general direction of Radcliffe Tower. "Before you made the papers. Do you remember where you were? How you got here?"

"I was . . ." He's not sure what she's trying to do, but she's succeeding in giving him a headache. His father's the one who talks to the press, after all, and the people of Radcliffe Square are a lot more civilized. But here she is, forcing her way into his life when he has very important work to do.

"Where were you, Fitz?" She looks up at him with such determination that he hardly knows how to resist. "Where did he take you?"

He swallows, and if he had a headache before, his head is pounding right now. He massages his temples with his fingertips, but it doesn't seem to help. He's outside of the place he feels safe, and if he can just get back there . . .

"I, um, I have to go."

Two hands grip his forearms, pinning him into place. Her face is only inches from his, and he has the most bizarre desire for her to get closer. He backs away instead, pressing himself up against the wall.

"If you go," she says, "I don't know how long it'll take me to find you again. She keeps you hidden in this strange little place, even though there's a whole world out there waiting for you to explore. She keeps you here to keep you away from me." She slides her hands up his arms to reach his hands, pulling them away from his temples so she can clasp them tight. "Don't let them do it, Fitz," she tells him, "don't let them keep us apart from each other."

He looks down at their hands with a sort of startled awe until something starts to stiffen inside of him. He pulls his hands free.

"I have to get to work," he says.

And she does call his name as he walks away, but he keeps going. He worries that she'll chase after him, but her voice gets farther and farther away until it stops completely. Fitz pulls open the door to Radcliffe Tower and tells himself that even a perfect place like Radcliffe Square is bound to have a few oddities every so often.

But when the security staff greets him with their usual, "Good to see you, Dr. Radcliffe," it feels oddly wrong.

* * *

"Honestly, Leopold," his mother says as she sits down at the table, "I can't believe you were just accosted like that. It's unacceptable."

His father nods as he takes a bit of food and swallows. "I always thought the square was safe enough that I didn't have to worry about security, but maybe I was wrong. I'll ask Garrett and Blake to go with you from now on.

" _Dad_ ," he says, "stop worrying about me; I'll be fine."

His father and mother exchange the knowing look that never fails to make him feel like a five-year-old. 

"I don't want you distracted, Fitz," his father says. "We have a lot of important work to do in the lab."

"I know," says Fitz. He pushes some peas around his plate and wishes he was absolutely anywhere else. "I'm not going to get distracted. You're blowing this out of proportion."

He shoves a forkful in his mouth with indignation, wishing he could just go home without making a scene. He loves his parents, but today, they've been insufferable. If he'd only lied about why he was late instead of telling the truth, they might have had a chance at an enjoyable evening.

"Maybe she'd back off if she thought you had a girlfriend," his mother suggests. "I've been meaning to introduce you to Callie, anyway. Or there's Akeela. They're both bringing about significant strides in the scientific community."

Fitz rolls his eyes. "For the last time, I don't need your help to find a girl." He pokes at his steak, frowning. "I'm perfectly fine on my own."

"Let the boy be a bachelor, Agnes," his father admonishes, taking a swig of beer. "We all know Fitz is married to his work."

Fitz bristles at that, uncomfortable with the characterization. It's not that he couldn't find a girlfriend if he wanted to. It's just—

It's just that he has these dreams almost every night, dreams where the wind howls and the sand scrapes at his face, where there's a hand reaching out to him. He never sees whom the hand belongs to, but he knows that grabbing onto that hand is a matter of life and death. 

It's a woman's hand. That much is certain. He doesn't know if he's saving her or if she's saving him, but he wakes up in a cold sweat wondering if it's some kind of sign.

He can't tell that to his folks, so he keeps it to himself. And when they offer to compromise and send Hunter with him to work instead, he agrees without thinking.

But when he catches a long, dark ponytail out of the corner of his eye, he knows in his bones that it's her. She doesn't come any closer, and he's sure that if he lets himself want to have her closer, he's going to end up in big trouble.

* * *

He's staring at the picture when he hears her. 

It's been a long day at work, and Hunter has been a lot more protective than was truly necessary. So he indulges himself by unlocking the drawer and looking at the face he's been recreating, wishing he could just remember who it is. He feels that something's on the tip of his tongue when his train of thought is broken by the sound of yelling. When he hears his father yell back, he locks the drawer and comes running.

"You can't keep me from him!"

He's just about to round the corner when his father's words make him stop.

"I don't have to keep you from him; that's the beauty of it. He's doing that himself."

Fitz takes a deep breath and leans against the wall, unsure of what he's supposed to do. 

"He'd never keep me away," she says.

"Ah, my darling," says his father, "but he has. Why do you think he stays in his own little little corner of the world? I keep offering to take him with me on my business trips, but he insists on staying here, where his subconscious knows that he's less likely to run into his friends." 

She scoffs at him. " _Business trips_. As if anything you do here is actual work."

Fitz tightens his grip on what he realizes is the picture, still there in his hand. 

"Have you seen the headlines?" argues Radcliffe, "we're saving the world! We're curing diseases and stopping bloodshed!"

"You're saving imaginary people from imaginary problems," she counters. "If you were doing this work in the physical world, then yes, those would be scientific breakthroughs. Here, you're just playing with toys in some fantasy land you've created. It's a waste of Fitz's genius and yours!"

There's a pause, and Fitz barely knows how to breathe.

"I'm sorry that you have such an inflated notion of how important you are to Fitz," Radcliffe says, "but when he has everything he wants, he doesn't need you. You're going to have to accept that this is his idea of a perfect world."

"That's a lie!" She shoots out the words like she shot a canon at him, though Fitz knows (somehow he's _sure_ ) that she's the only one hurt. "He wants us to be together!"

"Ah, well," says Radcliffe, "you can't blame a boy for being a lovesick fool. You think you know him better than anybody, but I've seen inside his brain! Do you really think anyone has betrayed him as much as you have?"

"No," she protests. "Don't you dare—"

"I mean, he's used to you abandoning him when he needs you the most, but the worst of it was when you asked him to be there for you! How long did he search for you when you went through that portal? Six months? And then he moves mountains to get you back, only to find out that he needs to get your new boyfriend back, too."

"I didn't—we've talked about—"

"Oh, yes, I'm _sure_ you talked about it. 'Stop doing what I asked, Fitz.' 'Come back to me, Fitz.' What would you have done if he'd been able to bring the astronaut back alive? Made up some joint custody arrangement?"

Fitz has to turn towards the wall and put his hands out to steady himself, because he can't seem to get a full breath. His hands are shaking and the headache is back, turning into a migraine. His heart is beating itself out of his chest, and it's too bright, too loud, too much.

"We worked through that," she says, sounding as shaky as he is, "I gave him all the time he needed. We fixed everything together."

"You broke his heart so many times that when he had the chance to start it over again, he decided he was better off without you."

Fitz slides to the floor, clutching at his head as the tears drip down onto his knees. Their voices have turned into a screeching cacophony, and he's in so much pain he can barely hear, barely see, and the panic overwhelms him. Maybe this is it. Maybe this is how he'll die. There's too much pain for it to be anything else.

But there are hands on his shoulders, on his face. They lift his head up so he can see her, they comb through his hair and still the tempest inside him. There's something so achingly familiar about this, and he reaches out to grab the hands, to have more contact with her. He doesn't miss the way she smiles.

"It's okay," she soothes, "he stormed out. We didn't know you were still here, or we never would have—"

She's interrupted by his gasps of breath, and her hands resume their work. 

He'd give anything to calm down right now, but the best he can do is cower in this hallway while she kisses him on the forehead, on the temple, on the cheek. She rests her forehead against his, and he's surprised at how much strength he can draw from her. It's because of her that his pain fades away, that he finds a way to breathe again. He doesn't even know why until she pulls back, opting to sit on the floor instead of kneel in front of him. He watches her shift and sees the picture that dropped out of his hands. 

"It's you," he says.

Her eyes follow his until she finds the picture for herself.

"I dreamed about you," he explains. "I _have_ been dreaming about you. For months."

She's cradling the picture in her hands like she's never seen anything more precious, and when she speaks, her words are strained with joy.

"That's because you love me," she says. Her eyes leave the picture to look straight into his, beaming despite the tear tracks on her cheeks. "I love you, too. More than anything."

Her hands reach out for his, and he feels like it's a lifeline.

"Do you remember anything else?" She brings their hands up to her mouth, kissing his thumb. "Where he took you? I think he used sleeping gas to knock you out, but you had to be conscious when he mapped your brain, so there has to be something you've seen, or something you've heard . . ."

He sucks air through his teeth and pushes back.

"I don't even know you." He closes his eyes and shakes his head, trying to make it all make sense. "In the dreams, you're always so far away."

"You've been by my side since we were seventeen," she says. "We were at the Academy together, then SciOps, and then they pulled us back to do more research at the Academy before we got recruited to join a mobile field unit." She puts her hands on his cheeks, and he lets her. He wants this as much a he wants to run away. "You were with me when SHIELD fell, too. And it was after that that we realized we were more than best friends, we were—"

"SHIELD?" His heart stops, and he feels stupid for not realizing it sooner. "You're mixed up with them?"

She pinches her eyes shut and takes a deep breath. "We both are, Fitz. And it's not a terrorist organization, like they say it is. We protect people. Together. And we were trying to protect the world from Radcliffe, but he took you away from me before we could stop him." 

He wants to say something, but he doesn't have the power. He can only bask in the feeling of her at the same time his mind is churning, trying to process everything that's happened in the last few days. If she _is_ a terrorist, if she's trying to bring down the company by working her way into his head, it's working.

"I know what Radcliffe said, but I've always been with you, Fitz. Even when I couldn't reach you."

He takes a shuddering breath and swallows. "I don't know what you want from me, but—"

"You," she says, soft, but insistent. "Us. The real us. Warts and all."

Warts. The way Radcliffe described it, she'd been the absolute worst part of her life. Why couldn't he believe that? There was something more to the story, something that was still under the surface. If he could reach it, he could—

"We share a room together on the base, but we were looking for a place of our own." Her hands are once again in his hair, and it's a wonderful feeling. "I love our life together. Nothing felt right before I had you to come home to."

He doesn't expect her to kiss him, but he finds that he doesn't mind at all. Instead, he kisses her back like it's the most natural thing in the world, like it's something he's always been waiting for. He feels practiced, too, with how easy it is to find her waist and draw her in. When she pulls back to look at him, he tucks a stray hair behind her ear without thinking.

"Jemma."

He watches her smile and feels like this has happened before, with her face spattered with blood and eyes shining brighter than the sun. He remembers it happening another time, as he blew on her hands to warm them up. Her smile nearly blinded him.

"I never told you my name," she says, still beaming.

"I know." He knew she was beautiful before, but he's overwhelmed by it now. 

"You wanted to marry me," she says. "I don't know why you couldn't tell me yourself."

His hands go through her hair, reveling in the way it feels as much as the way it makes her eyes close and her head fall back.

"I'm not good enough for you," he tells her, feeling the bitterness in his heart even as he enjoys her sweetness. "Never was. I ruined everything, Jemma."

"Nothing that can't be fixed," she says. "I mean it, Fitz. We'll get out of here, we'll clean up the mess Radcliffe made, and we'll go right back to the life we planned."

"He was wrong," explains Fitz, his hands trailing down to her shoulders. "I'm not better off without you. You're better off without me."

He doesn't remember everything. He doesn't remember how she got that scar above her eye, or why she's shaking her head. He only knows that it feels true, and it's the reason he has this life. He's been telling himself that he's fixing the problems of the world, but all he's really done is kept himself as far away from the world as he can, so he can't break anything else.

"If you're so terrible," she says, "then why have I spent the past year and a half waiting for you to propose?"

He stares at her, stupefied, but she just smiles at him. And this time, when she kisses him, he remembers the way she stood in their room, telling him that she loved him because he was kind. He remembers the way she put her hand on his heart, telling him that he was good. He remembers the love in her eyes way before he could let himself believe it, remembers her head on his shoulder and her command to come back to her. He remembers everything—all the loving words she's said, all the reasons he loves her.

"The window," he says with a gasp. It's like he's coming out of the water, and this is his first breath. "I woke up, and I was staring out a window. There was water."

"You were in the submarine," she supplies.

"Yes. I was still a little groggy when they took me out of there, but I saw the sky. And a sign. It was in Cyrillic."

Her brows furrow, and she nods. "Of course it is. But you have a good memory, Fitz. Do you think you could write it down?"

"Yeah," he says, "I was trying to commit it to memory."

She gives him a quick kiss and leaps to her feet, scurrying off towards Radcliffe's office. It's not until she's gone that he realizes how empty this building must be, so late in the evening. It's a little silly to be sitting in this hallway alone. He stands up, dusts himself off, and she returns. Jemma offers him a pad of paper and a pen, and he recreates the sign the best he can.

 

Кольская АЭС

 

She grabs the pad as soon as she's done, poring over the letters.

"We should have studied languages," she says. "I don't know how we thought we could be spies without learning a language."

"We never wanted to be spies," he reminds her.

He earns a smile for that, the kind that is small, but warm enough that he can feel it in his toes.

"I'll have to take this back to Yoyo. We'll put it through the computer and find out where you are. Daisy created a back door for me, so I can leave when I need to."

His heart falls, and he reaches for her hand without thinking. "You're leaving me here?"

"Only for a little while," she says, looking down at their hands. "I'll be there when you wake up."

He swallows, thinking of his long drive home, of the empty bed that's waiting for him. Maybe she'll find him before morning.

"Okay, then," he says, trying not to sound too disappointing. "Just . . . hurry back."

This kiss might be the best one of all, because they come to each other in unison. She throws her arms around his shoulders and he wraps his arms around her waist, and there's nothing more right than the feel of her body against his. They've never had a real goodbye kiss before, so he takes advantage of it as best he can, telling her how much he loves her with every slide of his lips. He sees her smile one last time when the kiss ends, and he thinks that they should always say goodbye this way.

"I promise," she says.

* * *

She's the first thing he sees when he wakes, and he smiles so wide that his chapped lips start to bleed.

"Easy," she soothes, her hands on his chest, "you're a little weak, but you're alright."

He _is_ weak; he can feel it. He's not sure how long he's been here, but she looks just as bad as he feels. He can only wonder how she got the bruises near her hairline and on her neck, but he's not sure that he wants to know. 

They'll have time for that. They have time for everything now.

He's patient as she and Daisy take everyone else out of the Framework, and patient when she helps him walk back to the Zephyr. But before the plane takes off, he pulls her to him as greedily as his strength will let him. She's so close to him that he feels her breath on his neck, and she has to look up at him through her eyelashes.

"Thank you," he says, but she only smiles back.

"Thought it was about time that I returned the favor."

He's about to kiss her when his legs give out, and she laughs as she catches him.

"We have time for that," she says.

She leads him to a place where he can sit down and takes her place beside him, her head on his shoulder, his arm holding her tight. They'll be on their way home soon, back to their own life and their own bed. He'll fall asleep and wake up next to her, every day for the rest of their lives.

And even as he falls asleep now, with her hand on his chest and the whole world before them, he thinks that there's no fantasy greater than this.

**Author's Note:**

> Кольская АЭС (Kolskaya NPP) is a Russian nuclear power plant that's close-ish to the sea, which is convenient if you come by submarine.
> 
> I regularly post sneak peeks and general ramblings about my writing on [my tumblr](http://agent-85.tumblr.com/tagged/Writings%20of%20Agent%2085).


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